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Hello, in the 5th century BC, the Greek physician Hippocrates confidently asserted,

men ought to know that from the brain, and from the brain only, arise our pleasures,

joys, laughter, and jests, as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs and tears.

This might suggest that people have never doubted the importance of the brain, but for Aristotle

a hundred years later, the heart was the ruler of the body and the seat of the soul, and for centuries

his view prevailed. And despite the sections of the brain, both human and animal, throughout

the following centuries, in 1669 the Danish anatom Stino still lamented that the brain the masterpiece of

creation is almost unknown to us. Why was the brain seen as a mystery for so long

and how did our perceptions of how it works

and what it symbolises change over the centuries.

With me to discuss the history of the brain, Abibian Nutton, Professor of the History of Medicine

at University College London. General on the Sorday, Professor of English Studies at the History of Medicine at University of College London, General on Sawday, Professor of English Studies at the University of Strath Clyde,

and Marina Wallace Professor at the University of the Arts London Central St Martin's College of Art

and Design.

Vivian Nutton, people have been puzzling over the brain since ancient times.

Let's start with Plato and Aristotle.

Plato had his own solution to a long problem, namely what controls the body? And he said the soul, and he thought that the soul had

three parts, one part in the brain, one part in the heart and one part in the gut. He himself never looked at the body. He was simply

arguing from a whole range of presuppositions, but his pupil Aristotle decided on a totally new

method of looking at the body, dissection, and he dissected animals of every kind to see what they did, how they

...